News / Human Rights

US Supreme Court to review Oklahoma execution procedure

Saturday, 24 January 2015 12:37 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 24 January 2015 12:37 AM ]

The inmates say the three-drug protocol used by the state can cause extreme pain that amounts to torture.

The Supreme Court has agreed to review the state of Oklahoma’s lethal injection as a way of execution to see if it violates a ban on cruel and unusual punishment on death row inmates.

The court on Friday agreed to take up a case brought by three death row inmates who accuse the state of violating the US Constitution through use of painful lethal drugs.

This is while the high court last week allowed the execution of a convicted killer to proceed in Oklahoma because four liberal members declined to halt the execution.

On Jan. 15, the high court declined to halt the execution of Oklahoma inmate Charles Warner, who was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-month-old baby.

Although five votes are needed to grant a stay application, only four are required for the court to take up a case.

The three-drug process used by Oklahoma prison officials for the death penalty has been widely debated since the April 2014 botched execution of inmate Clayton Lockett, a convicted murder.

Locket spent almost an hour twisting on the gurney after death chamber staff failed to place the IV properly and the drugs did not enter his system.

The inmates say the three-drug protocol used by the state can cause extreme pain that amounts to torture.

After the Lockett execution, the state decided to increase the amount of midazolam used to render an inmate unconscious.

The Supreme Court is stepping into the subject of lethal injection for the first time since 2008.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion that she believes it is time the effectiveness of the drugs is reviewed since states are increasingly using scientifically untested methods of execution.

"Petitioners have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished," Sotomayor wrote. "But the Eighth Amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected to an execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death."

AN/AGB

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